Jan 29: "Take A Shot At Changing The World" kickoff

The launch of the 2012 "Take A Shot at Changing the World" video contest will include a free screening of the funny and award-winning film "YERT:  Your Environmental Road Trip".  The contest offers young people up to $10,000 in cash and prizes for making short movies on how they would change the world.  YERT is a hilarious and educational look at three filmmakers who set out from the Rachel Carson Homestead near Pittsburgh and visited all fifty states looking for ways to save the planet while producing (and retaining) a shoebox full of trash each month.  


Special guests include Mark Dixon, YERT's producer and star, Dr. Patricial DeMarco, Director of the Rachel Carson Institute, Andy Masich, President & CEO of the Heinz History Center, and Carl Kurlander, Executive Producer of Steeltown Entertainment Project.  After the YERT showing, stay for a screening of My Hero, last year's winning "Take a Shot" movie from Tyler Anderson of Mt. Lebanon High School.  You can see all the entries here.

Last year, over 265 students in the region took a shot at changing the world, and made movies about the polio vaccine in Pittsburgh.  This year, the contest is bigger and better and we're encouraging students in SWPA to "make a movie and make a difference", by focusing on Pittsburgh innovations and innovators that have change the world and what you might do to make a difference!

Check out these articles in Pop City! and the Pittsburgh Tribune Review on the contest and the new TV show just shot in Pittsburgh (produced by "Two and a Half Men" director Jamie Widdoes).  


2:30 p.m. at the Heinz History Center.  Tickets are free, but you should RSVP to Rachel@steeltown.org .